Without Summer
by SandandSea1
Summary: We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Vita: 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another. - Robert Oppenheimer When the bombs fell, few were truly prepared for it. AU, dark. MirAndy eventually.
1. Chapter 1: (Prologue)

This is my first fanfiction posting here. This is also my first attempt at DWP.  
DISCLAIMER: I do no own any of the characters.  
WARNINGS: for violence, drug use/abuse, and non-con/dub sexual situations. If you have triggers for any of these please be warned. I won't use these situations gratuitously but they will probably be explicit. I will update the rating when the story reaches that point.

Without Summer  
By Sandandsea1

**We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Vita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.  
- Robert Oppenheimer**

Prologue

When the bombs finally fell, few people were truly prepared for it. People said they would be ready, they prepped for it; there were Preppers. But few people were truly ready for the light of a thousand suns falling into their midst. They weren't ready for the sheer chaos of the noise and heat and light that vaporized everything in its reach, melted rock and steel down to slag, and cast plant and animal to ash and shadow. They were not prepared for the mind numbing cold of the darkness that followed. Months and years of overcast skies courtesy of hundreds of tons of smoke, dirt and ash trapped in the upper atmosphere enclosing the Earth in a tomb of perpetual night. Few people were truly prepared to steal, and hoard, and fight, and kill civilization's few remaining members if it meant that they would survive another day on a dying world.

And when it was over, in the aftermath of the killing and the dying, all was silent. Black rain, gray snow; the world shroud in muted colors, painted in a palette of death. The Earth in mourning of another year without summer.

TBC...


	2. Chapter 2: Chapter One

_Chapter One_

_ Dangerous and too close. The looting began just hours after the news broadcast of the first mushroom cloud. Molotov cocktails shattered through store windows and against building facades. The wailing shriek of car alarms were left unattended; their owners concerned by other matters. The sudden staccato bursts of gunfire beat against eardrums, the sound felt more than heard above the rising din of angry and agitated cries._

_ Thousands of voices, raised up all at the same time, became a constant rumble of sound too convoluted to separate into distinct words. Each articulation became distorted and drowned out until human communication had regressed to its basest form. People no longer used a complex system of words and syntax to get their meaning across. Primal sounds torn from their bodies spilled across their tongue expressing anger, pain and fear._

_ She could see them. She was one of them. A stampede struck animal-dumb, eyes wide with terror and desperation as it ran from the conflict zones. She could hear bones snap and sharp screams cut short. She saw the violations man visited upon one another in the chaos; unthinking almost instinctual acts of cruelty. As buildings filled with the unfortunate went up in flames, the smell of burnt flesh and the copper bite of blood tinted the air in sickly, sweet undertones amid the noxious, industrial fumes of melting plastic and burning insulation._

_ A number of people were neither quick nor strong enough to keep up and became trampled beneath the feet of the fleeing masses. She stumbled and slipped among the fallen. Hands lifted, desperate to grab hold, to pull them from the tide that was sweeping their lives away. She saw one man, barely a boy, go down right ahead of her and reach out to help. It was a mistake. Off balanced and not aware, the shove came out of nowhere. Her ankle wretched and her knees scraped hard on the asphalt as she landed half straddling the man. No one stopped to help. Feet and knees trampled and bruised, the forward momentum of the wave of panicked people rolled over them, knocked down all her progress to get up again._

_ Warm breath brushed against her cheek as she curled around him and tried to protect him. When the jetting puffs of air suddenly stopped she looked at the man she had tried to save. Blinking back tears, she realized that she had put herself in danger and it made no difference. Blue eyes already glassy with the first touch of death gazed, sightless back at her. Then he was gone, and in his place Miranda Priestly stared back at her with piercing blue eyes forever fixed in an icy gaze of disappointment. Her hand, trembling in shock stretched to touch Miranda's face._

_ "Did you smack your pretty little head when you fell?" The question said in __**that**__ voice, quiet with authority made her jerk back and look up. Miranda Priestly, Dragon of Runway magazine, stood there as solidly as a boulder while the raging tide of people flowed around her. "Get up, Andrea."_

_ "Miranda, but how..." Andy looked down to see the stranger again before looking to where Miranda stood with her hand on her hip. The older woman rolled her eyes in a look that clearly asked: Why do I surround myself with idiots?_

_ "No, no. that wasn't a question." Andy blinked at Miranda's caustic statement. "The details of your incompetence do not interest me." The apparition glared and Andy could feel every ounce of expectation in the look, "Do not make me repeat myself Andrea. You chose your course before. Choose now." Then Miranda disappeared into the crowd as if she was never there. Andy looked again at the man and again to where Miranda had last stood. If she didn't get up now, she knew that she never would._

_ Her hands pushed against the pressing flow; they clawed at the passing crowd and came away wet with blood. She fought against the crushing embrace. She pulled people down to leverage herself up and thought nothing of it. They would have left her to die. She would not die! She chose to live. She was losing the battle. She tried to stay in control, tried not to panic and scream and waste precious air and energy. Sweat poured off her and bile crawled up her throat..._

* * *

Andy Sachs woke up sweat soaked and breathless. The old nightmare leaving her exhausted and emotionally spent as always. The sudden tingling wave of nausea that followed had her quickly untangling her limbs from the thin, threadbare sheets and rolling out of the single person cot, shivering with the first touch of cool pre-dawn air against her sweat dampened skin. Andy hurried across the barrack floor, barely holding in the contents of her stomach. As she moved steadily through the rows of sleepers, making her way to the communal bathroom, she dodged equipment and piles of clothing discarded the night before.

The overhead light sputtered briefly before settling on a steady, bright glare that bleached out all the shadows. The plain white and blue square tiles were freezing against her bare feet but it was a distant, secondary concern as she moved swiftly to one the toilet stalls. She had just lifted the seat when the contents of her stomach splattered against the bowl. Tears ran down her face as she vomited helplessly and uncontrollably until her stomach produced nothing but dry heaves.

Andy spit out the last taste of bile and flushed the toilet, flinching at the impact the closing lid made in the cavernous room. A knock near her head made her jump and whirl around in surprise to see Charlotte looking worriedly from the opened stall door. The blond hesitated, a question forming on her lips, so Andy took the opportunity to get away.

"Hey," came Andy's brief greeting as she brushed past the taller woman. Andy staggered slowly over to a row of in-wall sinks, she rinsed her mouth, wetting her face several times with water that was shockingly cold. Feeling Charlotte come up behind her, Andy looked at her reflection in the large panel mirror that bolted to the wall and took a deep calming breath.

"I'm okay," she croaked at her, sounding unconvinced. Her voice was rough from disuse and scratchy from the vomiting. She pushed short, damp locks of disheveled brown hair back from weary doe-like eyes and cleared her throat, "Really. It was unpleasant." There... that was much more convincing she tried to tell herself, "But it's over now." Charlotte nodded in reluctant acceptance and moved away, leaving Andy to herself. Unfortunately for Andy, the tired, sleep deprived face that stared back from the mirror was not so easily convinced.

Alone in the room once more, Andy decided that it wasn't too early to start her day before anybody else woke. The showers were deeper into the room, past the toilet stalls and the locker area. She wouldn't have long to wait for hot water, even this early in the morning. One thing she noticed, along with protection and food, setting up hot water for bathing was almost always a priority for the para-military unit that she joined after the bombs dropped. The last thing anyone needed was an outbreak of disease and infection.

She grabbed her toiletries from her locker while she waited and one of the clean towels from the shelves was left on a bench outside of the communal shower area. Soon steam began to fill the room and chase away the chilly morning air. She discarded the damp, purple and white Northwestern University t-shirt and boxer shorts that she wore to bed and left to the side as she stepped into the hot spray.

The water pounded down on her head and shoulders bringing relief to the knotted muscles there. The spray echoed in the cavernous shower so she didn't hear Charlotte step up behind her. Andy gasped in surprise at the unexpected touch to her bare skin and whirled, striking out at the threat. She cursed her stupidity at leaving her gun with her supplies. It wasn't unusual for some of the more brutish mercenaries in the unit to get aggressive in their attentions. Andy had been around long enough to know that the threat was real.

"Whoa! It's me!" Charlotte barely ducked the wild swing thrown her way. She put her hands up in a gesture of peace which seemed at odds with the compact pistols she held in each hand. "It's just me," Charlotte repeated and stood back until she could see recognition dawn in Andy's eyes.

Andy's heart pounded in her throat and her back stung from where it had slapped painfully hard against the shockingly cold tile wall. She sagged in relief, taking deep breaths to calm her racing pulse. Cautiously, Charlotte reached out to bring her into an awkward hug.

Charlotte asked, voice taut with worry when Andy looked up at her, "Are you sure you're going to be okay, Andrea?" Charlotte's voice was light and clear as she said, 'Andrea'. The tone aptly matching the dark blond curls that hung messy above sleepy chocolate eyes.

Ann-drE-ah. The way Charlotte persisted on using her full name reminding her of how Miranda used to say it: Awn-Dray-ah. No one said it quite like Miranda did and soon Andy had stopped listening for it. Insisting instead to the point of being rude on being called Andy. Her Miranda. Andy flinched away from the thought. Miranda had never been hers.

"Don't call me that." Andy chastised, her tone sharper than she meant it to be. She moved out of Charlotte's arms taking the gun offered and placed it on the ledge for the soap, " You know I prefer Andy." She picked up the bar of soap and turned back to the water. She didn't want to talk about the reason she got out of bed to have a shower at two-something in the morning. Purposely misunderstanding the question, hoping that Charlotte would just drop the line of questioning, Andy stated, "I said I was fine. You just startled me."

"You really need to talk to someone about them." Charlotte said ignoring the annoyance she could hear in Andy's voice and the way Andy's back went rigid. Sighing in surrender, Charlotte reached around Andy to take the soap and washcloth from her. She leaned forward after a moment and kissed the nape of Andy's neck softly in apology for pressing the subject. Leaning back again she ran her soapy hands and cloth over the back and shoulders in front of her.

Slowly sensing and end to the conversation, Andy relaxed under the firm pressure of the cleansing hands. That Charlotte knew just where to touch and how much pressure to use so that the touches weren't ticklish was prurient knowledge gained from the few times that they had slept together. Andy closed her eyes and allowed herself to lean into the familiar hands stroking her skin.

The hands slowed and lightened, changing the massaging wash subtly into a caress. Charlotte's hands moved around to the front of Andy's body. Charlotte smiled as she brushed her nipples against the smooth back in front of her and drew a sharp gasp from her friend. "You don't have to talk now." She said breaking the silence that had enveloped them. She looked down at the curvaceous body in front of her with appreciative eyes. "We could do other things."

Andy turned in Charlotte's arms and studied her. The taller woman was attractive. Andy had thought so the first time they fell into bed with each other. She had brown eyes and hair as golden as the rest of her with heavy breasts tipped with dark rosy nipples. But, Andy had finally admitted to herself, the woman she really wanted was unattainable: twice her age with children and three divorces under her fashionable belt. And she was an impossible want. Andy didn't know where Miranda had gone after the bombs dropped and the world changed. She didn't even know if the indomitable woman had survived the inital blasts that centered over the major metropolitan areas of the country.

Charlotte kissed the side of her neck, the pleasant feeling pulling Andy from her somber thoughts. Andy allowed the distraction letting the kisses trail around to her mouth before she started kissing back. No, Andy thought Charlotte wasn't the one she wanted, but as the old saying went: 'love the one you're with.'

Charlotte arched forward to fill her hands as Andy cupped and ran soapy fingers across the firm, soft flesh before attempting to pinch the slippery tips. Andy closed her eyes imagining pale, creamy skin as she bent to take one beast in her mouth while gripping Charlotte's wiggling body firmly to her. Charlotte's throaty moans caressed over Andy's ears in time with the rocking of her hips as Andy pretended that they were the cool, composed cries of her ex-boss slowly unraveling and losing control.

TBC...


	3. Chapter 3: Chapter Two

**AN: I'm not one for writing author's notes so you won't see a lot of these. I just want to say thank you to those of you who have read and reviewed this story so far. This is my first attempt at a post and I'm quite nervous about it. The plot is developing as I go, so I don't really know where this story will lead except that eventually there will be MirAndy. I would like to improve my writing. So if you have any creative criticism to help me, please let me know. Thank you.**

Chapter Two

_Four months after J-Day._

_The attack had been multi-armed and its reach spread across the country; D.C., New York City, Chicago, San Antonio, and Los Angeles were among the list of cities destroyed in the attack that most survivors named Judgment Day or J-Day. The loss of infrastructure equaled a loss in leadership especially with the damage to the seat of government. The US military experienced a drastic thinning of its ranks as soldiers went AWOL to aid family and friends in their home states. Without protection from the government, commanders of para military groups such as state or city police became generals of their own armies made up of fellow officers and volunteers._

_The initial impact and radiation weren't the only things to worry about after J-Day. Due to the yield of the weapons used, an EMP effect occurred. Everything networked to the electrical grid went down; essentially fried, including nearly all circuit based technology. There were still computers and cell phones but they didn't work. There was no internet. Nor was there any power from the wall outlets, food or clean running water. Plagues broke out. They evacuated the cities. _

* * *

He lived in a small three bedroom, two bath flat with and open floor plan over a little non-big box bookstore. The floor was all oak hardwood and the walls were a shade of purple that his wife called periwinkle. It looked nice with the light cream painted wood of the handmade cabinetry. Juan Mendoza had renovated the place himself with help from his boys, Juan Carlos and Ricardo before his wife Carla passed away from lung cancer back in 2001.

The bookstore, Novel Escapes, was all Carla's idea. Juan always said that, "Carla loved books with a passion that was only exceeded by her love for her sons." It was hard for Juan and his sons when Carla passed away. Juan Carlos, or JC as he preferred, started to get into trouble at his high school and Ricardo or "Richie" began to withdraw more and more into himself. Juan thought about closing or selling the bookstore more than once. Even though the economy wasn't the best, there were still buyers for the storefront site which was in an up and coming area of the city.

On J-Day, everything changed for Juan Mendoza and his family. J-Day started out like any other that Juan could remember. Business wasn't bustling that day but that was normal for a Tuesday afternoon. People were often tired from the rush from the day before and wanted just to take it easy, browse lazily and go about their day.

It was 2:45 in the afternoon as Juan rang up the last customer before the afternoon rush. The school suspended JC for fighting on Monday so Juan had put him to work in the store as punishment. There was no way the boy would sit around all week and play video games. The fifteen year old came from the Employees Only area of the store where he had put up back-stock. He brought with him a crate full of assorted soda for the two small display refrigerators near the checkout counter.

"Just leave those for now," Juan instructed, ignoring his son's sullen silence. "I need those end-caps restocked before the evening rush."

JC started restocking the end-cap shelves at the end of the book aisles. "Why do they always take stuff from the top shelves?" He muttered loudly to himself stretching upwards on his toes.

"Because they know you are short, Juan Carlos." Juan answered, "Use the footstool. You don't have all day."

"I'm not short." JC again muttered loudly. He grabbed the footstool and was able to reach the shelf.

Juan grimaced at the expected response. "Fine you are vertically challenged. You're fun sized whatever," Juan challenged. His son hated being reminded that he was small of stature. Juan could sympathize with the thought not being tall himself, but his son couldn't be allowed to get into fights because someone said so and hurt his misplaced pride. "You are small like your father and there is no shame in that." JC fumed and ignored him, continuing to work. "You should be in school with your brother..." The sudden and unexpected loss of power interrupted Juan's lecture.

Grumbling, he headed to the fuse box at the back of the store. JC looked over at him from where he stood, a book was halfway to the shelf. The sound of wheels squealing and cars crashing, horns blaring and glass breaking outside on the street resounded loudly inside the store. JC put the book down and slowly jogged over to the window. Suddenly, a roaring, gusting torrent of air, dirt, bikes, poles and garbage rushes past the wide storefront window, rattling the glass and shaking the building. Juan and JC tumbled heavily to the ground. They covered their heads as the pressing gust of air shattered the windows and tossed merchandise all over the place.

Juan blindly crawled over to his son and half dragged, half lead him away from the gaping hole where, in gold leaf, the name Novel Escapes had been. They made their way along the wall using it as a directional touch point as well as the most stable part in the room. Crawling over toppled bookcases and torn books, pencils, boxes of candy and other articles of merchandise, they made their way to the Employees Only door. It was quieter in the back storeroom although the building still tried to shake itself apart. Pulling open a cupboard and unlocking a trapdoor, Juan pushed JC down a hidden staircase into a basement area.

If books were Carla's passion, secret rooms were Juan's. As a child, Juan enjoyed mystery novels and shows where the building featured in the story had secret doors and rooms. He was a fan of speak-easy architecture for the same reason. So when an opportunity arose for Juan to include a secret room into the store's design, he went for it.

Juan turned on the battery operated LED light near the door. It's cold light filled the near corner of the room which spread across the entirety of the store's foundation. There were more lights spread throughout the space. It was quieter in the basement and the walls didn't shake so much there; the foundation having been made of thick layers of concrete. Juan feared being trapped in the room from the building collapsing and blocking the entrance more than the idea of building crushing them to death.

Juan took a deep breath. He finally felt as if he wasn't just reacting, that he could think. He walked the length and width of the room for a moment lost in thought. First things first, he had to find Richie. As soon as it calmed down some, he would go out and find his son. Then he would find out what happened. Maybe it was an earthquake or perhaps a tornado. He had heard of such things. Second, the basement was never designed as a safe room and now Juan saw the error in that. They would need food and water. They would need a source of heat. Who knew if the upstairs apartment was still livable after that tremor.

Soft crying drew Juan's attention away from his planning. JC sat with his arms wrapped around his knees which he had drawn up to his chest. He'd tucked himself into the nearest corner and was trying to disappear into the wall. Juan went over to JC and slid down the wall so that he pressed up thigh to thigh with his son. He slung an arm around his eldest and pulled the boy to his side in comfort. He only prayed that Richie was safe and that he would be able to reunite his family once again soon.

* * *

There was darkness always; a perpetual dusk from which the sun never rose or set, there were only degrees of umbra. It was late May or maybe early June. It was hard to tell with never knowing when one day ended and another began. Andy hadn't seen the sun in months. The grass was knee height but it lay withering in ever browning clumps where it rose through sidewalk cracks. The trees were losing their foliage in the unexpected onslaught of cooler temperatures. Most of the people left in the city, kept off the streets most of the time, only going out to forage for supplies. It felt as if the city was in the grasp of an early, non ending winter.

Andy took full advantage of the shadowed and near abandoned streets as she scavenged among the dilapidated architecture. She made her way steadily down Sixth Avenue moving closer to 22nd Street searching abandoned buildings and smashed store fronts as she went. Most of the ones she had passed by were already looted. They lay empty of any items useful for keep or trade.

An hour later found Andy moving back to the apartment. She had found in a domicile off of 29th Street; closer to the destroyed Financial District than she had ever gone since J-Day. A small stash of soup cans, a carton of cigarettes that she would never consider smoking, two cotton knit blankets and three cans of cola that she would have with her soup later were her find. Adjusting the edges of her mismatched, ill-fitting clothing closer to her, Andy deftly brought the full backpack of found supplies over her shoulders to begin the trek back to the apartment.

The apartment that Andy was heading to was not her own. Her apartment on Broom and Ludlow was too close to the Financial District to survive the blast waves from impact. The whole Lower East Side was awash with radiation by the time her bus had made its way across the Triborough Bridge from La Guardia Airport. Andy had gotten off the M60 bus and hearing of the attack had put Andy in a state of shock. Upon learning that the Financial District had been hit hardest, Andy had made her way to Miranda's Upper East Side townhouse. Unless she wanted to go back to the airport, she didn't have anywhere else to go. Andy had found the townhouse ransacked and its occupants gone.

Andy had stayed in Miranda's home as long as she could waiting for the editor's return. She gathered a first aid kit and two of the twins' backpacks full of supplies. She was sure that the older woman and her daughters would walk into the house at any moment and give her that look that said she was an idiot for having worried. Andy had imagined the course of the conversation: _Of course I was working, not that it should matter to you since you left me in Paris._ Miranda would have said. _But since you're here, stop wasting time and get me my coffee, center of the sun hot. _

From the top windows she could see people moving north several with serious looking burns and wounds. Once the evacuations began in earnest, it was no longer safe to hide in the townhouse. One of the passing refugees broke the front door and then a group looted the home for supplies. Luckily, they never found the safe room in Miranda's closet where Andy hid. Once that wave had passed, Andy had moved. Instead of moving further away from lower Manhattan, however, she moved closer going against the tide of evacuees.

Making that choice, Andy found several people who had holed up in the buildings near the edges. Some were too scared to leave all that was familiar. For Andy, staying wasn't about not leaving what was familiar, but finding those that had been lost. Those less altruistic and more opportunistic in nature chose to stay to take advantage of the weak and the desperate. The police departments were not the only organizations to form an army from the void left on J-Day. Mercenary gangs roamed the broken city like packs of rabid wolves.

Andy had gone to the nearest library after she left Miranda's place. Surprisingly, it and its contents had remained mostly intact. It was a godsend. A temporary haven in the chaos. In a world without the intranet, books were the most advanced form of information technology.

For about two weeks, she read anything that looked like it would have useful information. She kept the most informative ones in a neat pile by her gear. Andy grabbed city and county road maps as well as maps of the sewer system after studying one book on urban survival. She read anything she came across that mentioned nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction. She read about the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine and cried for twenty minutes at the pure delusion that people had been under. If some madman somewhere wanted to destroy the world, would he even care that he was going down in flames as well? Obviously not.

Someone had set a fire in the library one day while she had been out. Probably one of the other refugees that refused to heed the call to evacuate the dead city. Andy knew that there had been a chance that some might discover the 'fun'damentals of reading but she never expected that she would lose her shelter. She came back from searching one of the nearby buildings for missed supplies to find the entire upper level of the four-story building engulfed in flames. Andy ran into the library for her supplies though later, she would acknowledge the risk as overly foolish.

Someone had looted her supplies while she was gone. They had rummaged through her the backpack and the food and water it carried taken. Andy didn't have time to curse her stupidity. She was just glad that she had decided to carry a second pack with the first aid kit and extra water with her when she went out to forage. Hurriedly acutely aware of the fire and the smoke filling the halls, she had grabbed the bag and stuffed a few books that she hoped would be useful in its now empty compartment. Anything she couldn't carry out, however, went up in flames with the building.

* * *

A chill wind gusted down the street pushing forgotten garbage towards her. Andy skirted the edge of a pile of rubble blocking the sidewalk pulling her hat lower on her brow and her scarf up higher over her nose. The detritus, littered with concrete bricks, twisted re-bar and books spread out along the street. Andy stepped up to the broken storefront window of what used was a bookstore. Its merchandise spilled from its gaping wound like blood.

The bookstore had once had a classic red brick façade. Andy could still see the peeling cream paint around the frame that once held the front window. The upper stories of the building were mostly gone as if a giant wrecking ball had crashed through it. The lower level, however, appeared mostly intact and Andy knew from experience that it was sound.

Strategic foot placement allowed her to climb up the small hill of debris and into the lower level of the building. From there, Andy made her towards the back of the darkened store. She went down the shadowed hallway and through the still functioning swinging door. A sign that said "Employees Only" hung above the doorway. A knock on a series of knocks on a solid-looking cupboard door allowed Andy entry to the hidden staircase that led to the secreted basement safe room.

When Andy had come upon the bookstore, she discovered that it was not empty. A man and his two sons lived there. Juan Mendoza had fallen through an unstable floor and had suffered a bad leg break, one day while out looking for food and supplies. The bone had punctured the leg muscle but luckily, it hadn't damaged the femoral artery.

Andy had happened across him and helped him get home. Juan had allowed her to stay with them in thanks. One day turned into two and soon it was a constant thing. Andy and sometimes the oldest boy JC foraged for supplies when needed and the group tried to stay unnoticed.

"Hey, Juan," Andy greeted shouldering through the slight opening that presented itself to her after a pause. Andy began sliding off the heavily laden backpack with Richie's help as Juan closed the door. "Any trouble while I was out?" She removed her hat and jacket before pulling at the scarf around her neck. Richie was already going through her bag, sorting the items into two piles: keep or trade.

"No. Well a little but -" He paused in his report as he bolted the door and angled a solid chair back beneath the door knob. Andy froze at hearing his hesitation before continuing to remove her outer-ware and helping Richie put the cans on a higher shelf in the pantry.

"Your dad's alright?" She asked, moving through the doorway to check on the older man who was fighting off a serious fever. Andy had helped Juan attempt to set the leg but with rudimentary first aid skills and limited medication, Juan had developed an infection. She found him deep in slumber. The room was thick with the cloying scent of sickness. Andy started to go over to check his bandages. "We might have to reset his leg. I found a book on it yesterday."

"Yeah. Okay," JC answered her distractedly, "Come on and let him sleep." He pulled her gently away from the edge of the doorway, a hint of worry in his voice, "Andy? Someone was in the building earlier." At her startled look, he continued in a rush, "We heard them. They were talking loud and tossing things around."

"Did they find the trapdoor? Did they find the stairs?"Andy's mind raced as she tried to think over the implications of their haven being discovered. They couldn't stay. Even if it were just normal looters and not one of the mercenary gangs searching the store for supplies, the risk was just too high to stay there.

"No," Juan affirmed,."No they didn't. At least I don't think they did. They just scared Richie with their thumping around." He reached out to ruffle his little brother's hair. Richie ducked under the hand that went to ruffle his short dark hair. Andy pulled the eleven year old to her side to cut short the fight that she knew was going to start.

"Alright guys." She spoke over their protestations, "That's enough." She sent Richie off to read or draw while she pulled Juan aside. "We can't stay here anymore. They'll be back and we don't know what they'll do."

"Where will we go?"

"I don't know. It's getting dangerous to stay here." She looked at him considering, "It might be time to get out of the city."

Andy watched his face cloud, "Dad will never leave the store. This was Mom's place."

"JC your mom is gone." She gently put her hand on his shoulder and urged him to listen to reason. "You have to go on living... for her. And I don't know if we can do that here."

"What about that woman you're always looking for?" JC asked stubbornly. He searched for the name he had heard Andy mention often to his dad, "You know...Miranda?"

Andy bit her lip, frustrated at his turn around. Yes what about Miranda? "I have to believe that she's alright," Andy said, listening to her own advice. Surely Miranda would want even her to go on living. Andy finally said determined, "There's nothing here anymore. For any of us."


End file.
